


Wishing to Fall into Your Arms

by unnieunnie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, Daily lives of supernatural beings, M/M, Melancholy with a happy ending, Mourning long lost love, Past relaionships (xiuchen), Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-11-15 08:56:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20863592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unnieunnie/pseuds/unnieunnie
Summary: In millennia of granting wishes, Jongdae has never has a master before who couldn't think of anything to ask for. He doesn't mind, though - it just means more time spent with Chanyeol.





	Wishing to Fall into Your Arms

**Author's Note:**

> For prompt T64 - I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> xxxxxxxx

“You have to make a wish some time, Yeollie,” Jongdae laughed.

Jongdae had said the same thing, over and over. He never heard testiness in his own voice, though, because he said it in the context of dragging themselves up from a table strewn with soju bottles; or a loud, brightly colored dream projected on a screen (a “movie”); of the wonder that was the food called pizza.

Jongdae had had many kind masters over his millennia stuck inside his bottle. He’d had plenty of horrible ones, too, but those people weren’t pertinent while his bottle lay in Chanyeol’s possession.

What was pertinent was that it had been almost a year since Chanyeol had found his bottle while digging around idly with his niece at the beach. Later that day, Chanyeol had been sitting on his bed in their rented beach house and tried to polish the barnacle-crusted crystal bottle, and it was only his desire not to wake up the 4-year-old that kept Chanyeol from shouting when Jongdae appeared.

Jongdae had been nonplussed to be introduced as “my friend from work who took the bus in last night” at breakfast the next morning, wearing Chanyeol’s too-big clothing, Chanyeol with dark circles under his eyes after hours and hours of questions. They’d eaten pancakes. Jongdae had learned the airplane game to make a young child eat, and gotten a ferocious sunburn after a day spent discovering all the joys of building sand-castles, swimming, and eating squashed sandwiches that were slightly gritty with sand.

Chanyeol had tried to put some kind of sticky glop on his red skin, then laughed when Jongdae magicked his sunburn away. After that, Jongdae had simply followed Chanyeol around – at first awkwardly wearing clothes many sizes too big and sleeping on the sofa in Chanyeol’s apartment. Eventually, once Jongdae had a better idea of what modern expectations were, he could make his own acceptable clothes, and he slept on the extremely comfortable bed in his bottle, once Chanyeol was convinced that Jongdae wouldn’t be stuck inside.

In all their time together, Chanyeol had never once forced him back into his bottle. Neither had he made a wish.

“Isn’t there anything you want?”

“You said I’m not allowed to wish for world peace or the cure for the common cold, or anything,” Chanyeol said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what else to ask for.”

At first, Jongdae let himself enjoy the novelty of this new iteration of the human world, with its bright screens and its conveniences. And Chanyeol seemed happy to have him around, pleased to introduce him to video games, tteokbokki, his group of friends. Sometimes, Jongdae could even understand why Chanyeol had nothing to wish.

“Maybe I should tell you some of the things other people have wished for,” Jongdae said one night, empty beer bottles and pizza boxes strewn around them.

“Okay, but other than, like, infinite money and hot women or whatever,” Chanyeol slurred.

By that point, Jongdae had known Chanyeol well enough to know that women weren’t really part of what he considered “hot,” though his ex-boyfriends had nothing in common with one another other than all remaining friends with him, which Jongdae, as a millennia-old supernatural being of great power, was certainly not bothered by at all.

Chanyeol was interested in music.

“The ability to enchant any listener with song.”

“Okay, but that’s even if it sucks, right? I want to be _good_ at music, not just make people like it even if it’s bad. I’d never wish for that.”

“An unerring head for business.”

“BOR-ing.”

“I suppose you’re not interested in political or military power.”

Chanyeol wrinkled his nose.

“Yuck.”

“The ability to eat whatever you want and not change size?”

“Tempting,” Chanyeol said, “but wouldn’t I still have to worry about indigestion?”

“The ability to drink wine and never get drunk.”

“Getting drunk is the fun part!”

“Physical beauty?”

Chanyeol reared back, fingertips against one collarbone.

“Why Jongdae, are you saying I’m not cute?”

In all his years granting wishes, Jongdae rarely had masters who tried to make him laugh. He didn’t like remembering every person who had held possession of his bottle, but he knew that Chanyeol would be a cherished memory.

“Eternal youth,” Jongdae said.

“What, and watch everybody I love get older and eventually die? That sounds terrible, I’d be all alone!”

The phrase, “not if you wished for me to stay with you” almost popped out of Jongdae’s mouth.

“Jongdae? Are you all right?”

“I need to go in my bottle for a bit. Genie business,” Jongdae said.

He disappeared before he could hear Chanyeol’s protest and be obligated to stay.

It had been many hundreds of years since the last time Jongdae had allowed himself to pull the small object wrapped in white silk out of the cabinet next to his bed, though he was aware of its presence at all times. He held it in his lap.

Xiumin’s first wish had been that the misdeeds of the local magistrate come to light. Several months later, when Xiumin himself had been made the magistrate, and his desk was piled high with scrolls, his second wish had been the ability to learn new languages with ease.

Some months after that, at a moon-viewing party, standing together watching the full moon’s reflection on the still waters of a pond, Xiumin had kissed him: lightly, briefly. Jongdae had been the one to lean forward for a second.

In the morning, Xiumin made his third wish: that Jongdae would stay by his side for the remaining days of his life.

Jongdae unwrapped the portrait, willing his hands not to tremble, feeling his appearance shift to the one his beloved Xiumin knew all those centuries ago – long hair with the top part pinned up by a jeweled pin, layers of robes in shades of blue, and the bracelets that bound him to his bottle turned to jade bangles.

Jongdae stared at Xiumin’s long-missed face. He had magicked the portrait to be truer to Xiumin’s appearance, but it had never satisfied him. He wished for a movie that could’ve captured Xiumin’s grace, and his high-pitched laugh.

“I was so selfish, wishing for you to stay,” Xiumin had said when he was old, stooped and white-haired and as beautiful as ever in his home – Jongdae's home – filled with Xiumin’s two wives, their children and grand-children, a great-grandchild on the way.

“Never,” Jongdae had said. “I wanted to.”

And on the night before he died, lying in Jongdae’s arms with a rattle in his breath that made Jongdae shudder in fear,

“I know I used up all my wishes long ago. But I wish for you to love again, Jongdae. To find again the happiness we’ve had together.”

Jongdae left the minute he felt Xiumin’s wish dissipate, before anyone else even knew that that beloved life had ended. He walked to the beach and flung his bottle into the water, leaping inside as it fell and grieving heartbroken at the bottom of the sea for many decades.

He had dallied with other masters since, of course. Some of them had been quite lovely. But it hadn’t been until this very day that he had for an instant considered spending another lifetime with one.

Jongdae felt Chanyeol’s hand wrap around the bottle, that sensation of pressure against his magic.

“Jongdae?” his master said, “would you please come out?”

When Chanyeol’s eyes went wide, Jongdae realized that he hadn’t changed his appearance back.

“No, no, please keep it if you like,” Chanyeol said. “It’s just such a change from Sanrio boxers and my old hoodie. Which, uh, still exists, right?”

Jongdae settled again into his old-fashioned clothes.

“It’s back in your drawer,” he said.

He watched Chanyeol examine him. Chanyeol wasn’t beautiful, like Xiumin had been. He wasn’t quiet and scholarly. He took up space, he was loud, and sometimes when he was laughing, his enthusiasm could literally knock one over.

“Been thinking about the past?” Chanyeol asked gently.

A kind heart was what they had in common. Jongdae nodded.

“Well, I’m awfully glad you don’t look like this all the time, it’s almost as intimidating as when I first saw you!”

Which was by design. His original form, bare-chested in a pleated kilt of semi-sheer ochre linen, hair a thick black braid down his back and his bracelets like golden gauntlets on each forearm, was generally stunning enough to anyone remotely attracted to the male form that he occasionally was able to grant three stupid wishes in quick succession and go back into his bottle right away.

“Flatterer,” Jongdae said with a grin.

“Well, duh. Even if you weren’t literally made out of magic, you’d be totally out of my league,” Chanyeol said.

Before Jongdae could determine what that could possibly mean, Chanyeol took his hand and squeezed his fingers gently.

“Is it anything you want to talk about? From the past?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jongdae said, surprising himself, and then, surprising himself even further, “would you like to come into my bottle and see?”

“Wow, are you kidding?” Chanyeol yelled. “Is that even allowed? Dude, of course I want to see inside! I’ve been itching to ask since about ten minutes after you arrived, I just didn’t want to be rude! Are you sure you don’t mind?”

As comfortable as the old silks were, Jongdae transitioned to modern clothes while Chanyeol bounced around his bottle like one of those little rubber balls, asking questions in such quick succession that Jongdae could hardly answer. It _was_ easier to have so much less hair.

“Wow, it’s so beautiful,” Chanyeol said when he calmed down enough to sit by Jongdae on the bed. “I love the stained-glass effect, given how it looks opaque from the outside.”

Jongdae showed him how the light and the colors could be changed, making another cascade of enthusiasm.

“It’s amazing. I used to worry sometimes that it was just like an empty bottle in here or something. Now that I know it’s so pretty and comfortable, I’ll stop worrying and be jealous, this bed is _way_ nicer than mine, I’m almost tempted to burn a wish. And I want to hear the story behind all your cool stuff! It’s like a museum, but better!”

Jongdae thought that was as good an opening as any. He handed Xiumin’s portrait to Chanyeol.

“Oh,” Chanyeol said after a moment spent cradling the portrait in his huge hands with almost as much tenderness as Jongdae thought it deserved.

“Is this who you were thinking about?”

“Yes.”

“He was so handsome.”

“His third wish was for me to stay by his side all his days,” Jongdae said, though doing so made his throat feel tight.

“Oh, Jongdae, you did, didn’t you? You stayed by him and watched him grow old while you stayed young. No wonder I upset you, I’m so sorry.”

“You can’t have known, Yeol.”

“I know that. But I’m sorry anyway.”

He scooted over to hand the portrait back and put one arm around Jongdae’s shoulders. Not many of his former masters ever touched him; far fewer still did so for plain comfort and closeness. Jongdae leaned into him, this nice man who wouldn’t make wishes.

“You must’ve loved him a lot, to still be so sad even after all this time.”

“We loved each other.”

“Tell me about him.”

Jongdae had never spoken of it to anyone. He had a difficult time starting, but with some questions and encouragement, Jongdae found himself telling Chanyeol everything about his life with Xiumin, from the day Xiumin found his bottle in a pile of straw behind an inn to the day he tossed his own bottle into the sea, and all the happy decades between. At the end of it, his tender-hearted master’s tears let him shed a few of his own, and his own heart felt lighter. 

“It’s so sad and romantic, Jongdae!” Chanyeol wailed into his own sleeve.

“Well, yes. That’s why I spent a century weeping at the bottom of the sea,” Jongdae said, and Chanyeol glared at him long enough to stop crying.

He followed the glare with a hug, though.

“Maybe you should send me back to my room now, so you can take some time for yourself.”

Jongdae shook his head, and they were sitting on Chanyeol’s much smaller, much less comfortable bed.

“Let’s go out and get drunk instead.”

“It’s not fair that you can just will your own hangover away,” Chanyeol slurred many hours later, draped over Jongdae’s back while the latter dragged him home. “And don’t even say it, I’m not wasting a wish on hangovers, I’ll just learn my lesson. Eventually. Even though this was your idea.”

Jongdae let himself remain pleasantly drunk while he texted their safe arrival home to Chanyeol’s friend group chat and made Chanyeol drink some water, take a shower, drink more water, and put on clean pajamas before he climbed into bed (more water on the bedside table).

“If only I were brave enough to ask you to take care of me forever, ” Yeollie mumbled to his pillow while Jongdae reached over to turn out the light.

He had no real need to sleep, though sometimes he enjoyed the way it made time pass more quickly, and sometimes he was able to dream. But he lay in his bed with his head on one arm and thought about grief. He thought about loneliness, and time. About the brightness of Chanyeol’s smile.

Chanyeol was groggy and miserable in the morning, and as far as Jongdae could tell, he had no memory of his last waking comment.

“How many people make at least one silly wish?” Chanyeol asked that afternoon, still looking green in his bed while Jongdae combed through his hair.

“Most.”

“I know I’ve always turned down your offer of a really fancy guitar.”

Jongdae grinned.

“Yes, because no one would believe you, no matter what you told them about where you got it.”

“But no one ever sees my bedroom, right? I mean, unless I were dating someone, but I’m not. So would it be very stupid of me to wish for a really comfortable bed?”

Jongdae made his hands cool and set them against Chanyeol’s temples. He watched relief make Chanyeol’s face go slack.

“Better to wish that every bed you ever own be exactly the kind of comfortable that you need.”

Chanyeol cracked one eye open.

“You’re helping me work the system,” he said.

Jongdae grinned.

“There are benefits to befriending one’s genie.”

“I wish that every bed I ever own be exactly the kind of comfortable I need.”

“Done.”

The mattress underneath them adjusted itself into something blissful; Chanyeol sighed.

Jongdae tried to feel happy that there were only two more to go.

Several weeks later, Chanyeol declared a movie night and showed Jongdae one of the ones made of drawings strung together. It was about a genie who befriended a hapless young man and outwitted a villain, ultimately set free by his master’s third wish.

“Do you want that?” Chanyeol asked, drunk again, with the wide-eyed earnestness that alcohol inspired in him.

Jongdae leaned into his shoulder briefly. When did his easy affection for this young human grow into something greater? He hadn’t noticed the way his regard had blossomed into something else.

“It doesn’t happen that way,” he said. “If you wished for me to be free of my bottle, I’d become human. In this form, as you see me, but without powers and mortal.”

“Is that so bad?” Chanyeol asked. “You could still live here, with me. I’d help you. We all would. You could do whatever you wanted, go to school, or get a job, and just – just live here.”

“I’ve been myself since before humans learned written language. I wouldn’t know how to be mortal, Chanyeol. You have an ID card and a bank account. If I tried to magic those for myself, they’d disappear the instant I lost my powers, what would I do? Pretend to have amnesia, as if I were in one of your television shows? I don’t even have fingerprints!”

“But you shouldn’t be at the mercy of whoever grabs your bottle, over and over.”

Jongdae shrugged.

“It is the life my people lead. There are few of us, and for long periods our bottles go unclaimed. I’ve spent more time on my own than with a master.”

“Maybe I could wish that you find another genie. One of your friends, maybe. And you could keep each other’s bottles, and be together.”

“Are you trying to be rid of me? If that’s the case, all you need to do is make two more wishes,” Jongdae said.

He made his voice sound light, and it was a lie.

Chanyeol rolled over to press his face against Jongdae’s chest.

“Don’t be a jerk, I still might throw up on you.”

“All right,” Jongdae laughed, and petted Chanyeol’s hair until Chanyeol tipped his head back.

“I just keep thinking about your Xiumin, and how lonely it must be, to know that even if you love somebody you have to say goodbye to them eventually. That’s why I thought maybe if you had a friend …”

Jongdae couldn’t stop himself from curling his hand around Chanyeol’s cheek at that. Nor could he help his sigh when Chanyeol nuzzled into the touch.

“There isn’t anyone like that. We don’t get along with each other. Because we’re made of magic, we repel one another naturally.”

“Oh, like magnets!”

Jongdae didn’t know what that meant, but the process of calling up videos on Chanyeol’s phone were interesting enough and took long enough that Chanyeol’s complexion became a less distressing color and he was able to eat some ramyeon. And in fact, genies appeared to be very like magnets, in the way their magic pushed one another away.

Sober and recovered, Chanyeol didn’t bring up loneliness or Xiumin again, though he seemed to hesitate before he reached out with a hug or an arm squeeze, and he asked to visit Jongdae’s bottle again. They spent a happy afternoon sitting on Jongdae’s bed with magically preserved objects strewn about them while Jongdae told their stories.

Sometimes Jongdae thought of the other masters with whom he had spent more than the bare minimum of time, and how different his lives with them had been. Most people immediately wished for wealth; but he found no dissatisfaction in living alongside Chanyeol. The apartment was small and smelled musty, and during the winter the windows had rattled with drafts when it was windy. And sometimes when his friends came over, they had to scrounge through their pencil cases and pants pockets for enough money to pay for their takeout chicken (if less frequently now, having in their group a genie who, even if his magic only worked on himself aside from wishes, could stroll around the block if in need of funds and always find a dropped bill in just the amount required).

It was so much less grand than what most of Jongdae’s masters had wanted. But he admired Chanyeol, for allowing himself to make his contentment where he could.

He found himself wanting to tell Chanyeol to ask for Xiumin’s wish. So he could see what kind of happiness Chanyeol would carve out of his human life. And share in it.

Except that he also wanted Chanyeol to want the same thing strongly enough to say it.

Though with two wishes still to go, Jongdae was required to stay regardless, so he might as well keep his conundrum to himself and see whether it might work out on its own.

He couldn’t mind that a second wish never seemed to materialize.

Weeks passed – Chanyeol lost one job, made his rent through the (genie-fueled) luck of a late refund from a years-old overpaid bill, and got another job, as a receptionist for an independent music studio. This meant not only more money than he had ever made before and regular hours, but also a constant smile on his face so bright that it caused Jongdae significant troubles in the heart region. He spent his now-solo days trying to walk off his heart troubles (to no avail) and watching humanity teem around him.

“The job won’t go away if you do, will it?” Chanyeol asked, hazy from the celebratory dinner with his friends.

“No. My luck helped you get it, it’s up to you to keep it.”

“I want to be better at keeping things,” Chanyeol mumbled on his way to sleep.

Just to squeeze Jongdae’s heart a little tighter. 

The rainy season came. Their windows crawled with condensation, and the apartment smelled so musty that Chanyeol began to talk about moving. He kept asking Jongdae what neighborhoods he liked, whether he’d mind having to climb a lot of stairs.

As if he assumed that they would remain together.

“Find a place you like, Yeol.”

“But I want you to be happy there too!”

Why was it so difficult to say aloud, “I’ll be happy wherever you are”?

They sat on the floor poring over apartment listings, and eventually Chanyeol would nag enough that Jongdae found himself giving opinions – that one too expensive, another too close to a nightclub, a third bound to stink, being two floors above a seafood restaurant.

“Breaking story,” a female voice said on the television behind them.

They looked up to see terrible pictures: a mudslide in the mountains, an entire school engulfed, the extent of the tragedy unknown. Jongdae felt Chanyeol clutch his hand, hard enough for discomfort.

“No,” he whispered.

He turned to Jongdae with wide eyes, already brimming.

“Jongdae.”

“I can’t turn back time, Chanyeol. You know I can’t.”

“But you can make them okay, can’t you? At least some of them? Nobody knows what’s happened yet, you can make some of those kids okay?”

Of course this sort of thing would be one of Chanyeol’s wishes. Jongdae touched his shoulder.

“You have to wish it, Yeollie.”

Chanyeol grasped both of his hands.

“I wish for all the people in the school, kids and teachers and everyone, to be okay. For as many of them as possible to be okay.”

“Done.”

They held hands while they watched the news to see what form Chanyeol’s wish would take. As the rescuers got further into the mud and found intact walls, only one body (an elderly janitor bracing a door with a mop), Chanyeol started to shudder. Jongdae put steadying arms around him and held tight, so that Chanyeol’s tears fell on Jongdae’s bracelets when the rescuers broke through into the cafeteria to find the entire student body terrified but safe.

“Thank you,” Chanyeol whispered, and pulled Jongdae close. “Thank you, Jongdae, thank you.”

His lips were wet with tears but soft against Jongdae’s cheek.

Chanyeol leaned back, and for several heartbeats, Jongdae thought Chanyeol might kiss him. He knew that if it happened, as before he would also lean in for a second.

If he were able to grant his own wishes, Jongdae thought he would wish for that: a first kiss for a question and a second kiss for an answer.

But Chanyeol had to be the one to ask. And in that moment, he did not. He embraced Jongdae again, saying “thank you” over and over instead.

Only one wish left.

They moved at the end of summer, to an apartment no bigger but considerably nicer than the old one, and within walking distance of the music studio. A new neighborhood for Jongdae to explore, while he waited for some kind of resolution to arrive.

Since his second wish, Chanyeol had been both less talkative and more snuggly. Jongdae accepted his hugs, the draping of Chanyeol’s large form across him on the new sofa, with an enjoyable ache. He tucked the memories safely inside for future self-torture. He wondered what was behind the musing gaze Chanyeol so often turned on him.

Maybe it would be better to be set free and be mortal, he thought sometimes as he walked the streets of their new home. Then they would be equals, and Jongdae wouldn’t have to wait for Chanyeol to say what he wanted. If he were simply a man, Jongdae could say “I want to stay with you” and never have to worry that Chanyeol’s assent had any breath of coercion or fear behind it.

And of course, he’d be spared the eternal heartache of not one, but _two_ lost loves.

He went into his bottle again and set Xiumin’s portrait on the bed in front of him.

After Jongdae had told him the story, Chanyeol had looked on the internet, to see whether any of Xiumin’s descendants could be found. But the name of a simple magistrate in a small seaside town 1000 years previously was, if ever recorded, long lost to time. For centuries, Jongdae had been the only one to know of Xiumin.

Except, thanks to Chanyeol’s compassion and curiosity, there were now two living beings who knew that beloved name.

So if Jongdae became human, that memory would eventually be lost. And eventually, no one would remember Chanyeol either.

That was the gift of his love. It didn’t ease the pain of loss, but it gave that loss meaning. To keep the memory of the beloved, so that something of them remained, even if it was no more than cherished memories and one small painting.

Jongdae gave a shaky laugh, wiped his eyes, and went back to the apartment, where Chanyeol was waiting for him and hugged him.

“I have it,” Chanyeol said, smiling. “My third wish.”

Jongdae staggered.

He wanted to shake his head. He wanted to deny the cruelty of it, why in _this_ moment, why was his fate to be so cold? But his master had declared the readiness for a wish, and his magic made him wait for it.

Chanyeol wrapped his hands around the black leather bands that were the form Jongdae’s bracelets took when he wore modern clothes.

“Jongdae,” Chanyeol said. “I transfer my third wish to you, so you can wish for what _you_ want.”

It shouldn’t have worked. One couldn’t transfer wishes, it was one of the basic rules, that the master had to make three wishes, and if they wanted someone else to have wishes, that person had better be holding the bottle at the time of the third wish, or the bottle would disappear. (Not that many people ever knew about that loophole, it wasn’t as if Jongdae would ever advertise it.)

But then, no one had ever tried to transfer a wish to _him_.

Jongdae felt his magic move, felt something slide out of Chanyeol’s grasp and flow up his arms, a trembling like the air just before a thunderstorm.

Chanyeol let go, and the trembling sensation remained.

“I’m hoping so hard right now,” Chanyeol said, eyes wide.

Jongdae looked at Chanyeol; looked at his bottle. Thought about all the millennia of badly phrased wishes, and clever wishes, and loopholes and workarounds. Thought about every little thing he had ever known about his own magic.

Thought about how he hoped too.

“I wish to remain as I am, with all my magic, but to be my own master,” Jongdae said.

Chanyeol’s smile lit up the room.

“Done,” the two of them said together.

Jongdae felt his magic shift around him – a settling, as if some long-untethered part of his very self came home. The flow of it over his skin made him take his original form, half-clothed and long-haired, feet bare against the chill wooden floor. Jongdae looked down and saw the gold of his bracelets, felt them go hot. A thin orange line appeared on each that curled back like paper on fire until there was a small gap down the center.

Was it done?

Jongdae gave himself modern clothes. The black leather of his bracelets now had buckles.

He went into his bottle, where everything looked as it had 10 minutes earlier.

He came back out again.

Joy rose up out of him in a shout.

“You did it!” Chanyeol said. “Oh Jongdae, you did it.”

He leaned down and touched his lips to Jongdae’s own – lightly, briefly. The question.

Jongdae smiled. He thought he was probably smiling down to his very soul, if he had one. Because he was his own master now, and a question had been asked of him.

The question had an answer.

“Chanyeol,” Jongdae said.

And kissed him.


End file.
